Thomas Covenant 02: The Illearth War

by Stephen R. Donaldson

  The barren atmosphere of the Howe ached in his chest as he climbed to his feet. Though he could hardly see where he was going, he started up the hill. The exertion made his head hurt as if there were splinters of bone jabbing his brain, and his heart quivered. A silent voice cried out to him, No! No! But he ignored it. With his halfhand, he fumbled at the ring. It seemed to resist him—he had trouble gripping it—but as he reached Troy he finally tore it from his finger. In a wet voice, as if his mouth were full of blood, he said, “Take it. Save her.” He put the band in Troy’s hand.

  The touch of the pulsing ring exalted Troy. Clenching his fingers around it, he turned, ran fearlessly to the hillcrest. He searched quickly with his ears, located the direction of Rivenrock, faced the battle. Like a titan, he swung his fist at the heavens; power flamed from the white gold as if it were answering his passion. In a livid voice, he cried, “Elena! Elena!”

  Then the tall white singer was at his side. The music took on a forbidding note that spread involuntary stasis like a mist over the hilltop. Everyone froze, lost the power of movement.

  In the stillness, Caerroil Wildwood lifted his gnarled scepter. “No,” he trilled, “I cannot permit this. It is a breaking of Law. And you forget the price that is owed to me. Perhaps when you have gained an incondign mastery over the wild magic, you will use it to recant the price.” With his scepter, he touched Troy’s upraised fist; the ring dropped to the ground. As it fell, all the heat and surge of its power faded. It looked like mere metal as it struck the lifeless earth, rolled lightly along the music, and stopped near Covenant’s feet.

  “I will not permit it,” the singer continued. “The promise is irrevocable. In the names of the One Tree and the One Forest—in the name of the unforgiving Deep—I claim the price of my aid.” With a solemn gesture like the sound of distant horns, he touched his scepter to Troy’s head. “Eyeless one, you have promised payment. I claim your life.”

  Lord Mhoram strove to protest. But the singer’s stasis held him. He could do nothing but watch as Troy began to change.

  “I claim you to be my disciple,” the singer hummed. “You shall be Caer-Caveral, my help and hold. From me you shall learn the work of a Forestal, root and branch, seed and sap and leaf and all. Together we will walk the Deep, and I will teach you the songs of the trees, and the names of all the old, brave, wakeful woods, and the ancient forestry of thought and mood. While trees remain, we will steward together, cherishing each new sprout, and wreaking wood’s revenge on each hated human intrusion. Forget your foolish friend. You cannot succor her. Caer-Caveral, remain and serve!”

  The song molded Troy’s form. Slowly his legs grew together. His feet began to send roots into the soil. His apparel turned to thick dark moss. He became an old stump with one last limb upraised. From his fist green leaves uncurled.

  Softly the singer concluded, “Together we will restore life to Gallows Howe.” Then he turned toward the Lords and Covenant. The silver brilliance of his eyes increased, dimming even the orcrest fire; and he sang in a tone of dewy freshness:

  Ax and fire leave me dead.

  I know the hate of hands grown bold.

  Depart to save your heart-sap’s red:

  My hate knows neither rest nor weal

  As the words fluted through them, he disappeared into the music as if he had wrapped it about him and passed beyond the range of sight. But the warning melody lingered behind him like an echo in the air, repeating his command and repeating it until it could not be forgotten.

  Gradually like figures lumbering stiffly out of a dream, the people on the hilltop began to move again. Quaan and Amorine hastened to the mossy stump. Grief filled their faces. But they had endured too much, struggled too hard, in their long ordeal. They had no strength left for horror or protest. Amorine stared as if she could not comprehend what had happened, and tears glistened in Quaan’s old eyes. He called, “Hail, Warmark!” But his voice sounded weak and dim on the Howe, and he said no more.

  Behind them, Lord Mhoram sagged. His hands trembled as he held up his staff in mute farewell. Lord Callindrill joined him, and they stood together as if they were leaning on each other.

  Covenant dropped numbly to his knees to pick up his ring.

  He reached for it like an acolyte bending his forehead to the ground, and when his fingers closed on it, he slid it into place on his wedding finger. Then, with both hands, he tried to wipe the blood out of his eyes.

  But as he made the attempt, a blast from Rivenrock staggered the air. The mountain groaned as if it were grievously wounded. The concussion threw him on his face in the dirt. Blackness filled the remains of his sight as if it were flooding into him from the barren Howe. And behind it he heard the blast howling like the livid triumph of fiends.

  A long tremor passed through the Deep, and after it came an extended shattering sound, as if the whole cliff of Rivenrock were crumbling. People moved; voices called back and forth. But Covenant could not hear them clearly. His ears were deluged by tumult, a yammering, multitudinous yell of glee. And the sound came closer. It became louder and more immediate until it overwhelmed his eardrums, passed beyond the range of physical perception and shrieked directly into his brain.

  After that, voices reached him obscurely, registered somehow through his overdriven hearing.

  Bannor said, “Rivenrock bursts. There will be a great flood.”

  Lord Callindrill said, “Some good will come of it. It will do much to cleanse the Wightwarrens under Mount Thunder.”

  Lord Mhoram said, “Behold—the Unbeliever departs. The High Lord has fallen.”

  But these things surpassed him; he could not hold onto them. The black dirt of Gallows Howe loomed in his face like an incarnation of midnight. And around it, encompassing it, consuming both it and him, the fiendish scream scaled upward, filling his skull and chest and limbs as if it were grinding his very bones to powder. The howl overcame him, and he answered with a cry that made no sound.

  TWENTY-SEVEN: Leper

  The shriek climbed, became louder as it grew more urgent and damaging. He could feel it breaking down the barriers of his comprehension, altering the terrain of his existence. Finally he seemed to shatter against it; he fell against it from a great height, so that he broke on its remorseless surface. He jerked at the force of the impact. When he lay still again, he could feel the hardness pressing coldly against his face and chest.

  Gradually he realized that the surface was damp, sticky. It smelled like clotting blood.

  That perception carried him across a frontier. He found that he could distinguish between the flat, bitter, insulting shriek outside and the ragged hurt inside his head. With an agonizing effort, he moved one hand to rub the caked blood out of his eyes. Then, tortuously, he opened them.

  His vision swam into focus like a badly smeared lens, but after a while he began to make out pieces of where he was. There was plenty of soulless yellow light. The legs of the sofa stood a few feet away across the thick defensive carpet. He was lying prostrate on the floor beside the coffee table as if he had fallen off a catafalque. With his left hand, he clutched something hard to his ear, something that shrieked brutally.

  When he shifted his hand, he discovered that he was holding the receiver of the telephone. From it came the shriek—the piercing wail of a phone left off its hook. The phone itself lay on the floor just out of reach.

  A long, dumb moment passed before he regained enough of himself to wonder how long ago Joan had hung up on him.

  Groaning he rolled to one side and looked up at a wall clock. He could not read it; his eyes were still too blurted. But through one window he could see the first light of an uncomfortable dawn. He had been unconscious for half the night.

  He started to his feet, then slumped down again while pain rang in his head. He feared that he would lose consciousness once more. But after a while, the noise cleared, faded into the general scream of the phone. He was able to get to his knees.

  He rested t
here, looking about him at the controlled orderliness of his living room. Joan’s picture and his cup of coffee stood just where he had left them on the table. The jolt of his head on the table edge had not even spilled the coffee.

  The sanctuary of the familiar place gave him no consolation. When he tried to concentrate on the room’s premeditated neatness, his gaze kept sliding back to the blood—dry, almost black—which crusted the carpet. That stain violated his safety like a chancre. To get away from it, he gripped himself and climbed to his feet.

  The room reeled as if he had fallen into vertigo, but he steadied himself on the padded arm of the sofa, and after a moment he regained most of his balance. Carefully as if he were afraid of disturbing a demon, he placed the receiver back on its hook, then sighed deeply as the shriek was chopped out of the air. Its echo continued to ring in his left ear. It disturbed his equilibrium, but he ignored it as best he could. He began to move through the house like a blind man, working his way from support to support—sofa to doorframe to kitchen counter. Then he had to take several unbraced steps to reach the bathroom, but he managed to cross the distance without falling.

  He propped himself on the sink, and rested again.

  When he had caught his breath, he automatically ran water and lathered his hands—the first step in his rite of cleansing, a vital part of his defense against a relapse. For a time, he scrubbed his hands without raising his head. But at last he looked into the mirror. The sight of his own visage stopped him. He gazed at himself out of raw, self-inflicted eyes, and recognized the face that Elena had sculpted. She had not placed a wound on the forehead of her carving, but his cut only completed the image she had formed of him. He could see a gleam of bone through the caked black blood which darkened his forehead and cheeks, spread down around his eyes, emphasizing them, shadowing them with terrible purposes. The wound and the blood on his gray, gaunt face made him look like a false prophet, a traitor to his own best dreams.

  Elena! he cried thickly. What have I done?

  Unable to bear the sight of himself, he turned away and glanced numbly around the bathroom. In the fluorescent lighting, the porcelain of the tub and the chromed metal of its dangerous fixtures glinted as if they had nothing whatever to do with weeping. Their blank superficiality seemed to insist that grief and loss were unreal, irrelevant.

  He stared at them for a long time, measuring their blankness. Then he limped out of the bathroom. Grimly, deliberately, he left his forehead uncleaned, untouched. He did not choose to repudiate the accusation written there.

  Here ends

  The Illearth War

  Book Two of

  “The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever.”

  The story concludes in Book Three

  The Power that Preserves.

  Dedication:

  For Dr. James R. Donaldson, M.D.,

  whose life expressed compassion and commitment

  more eloquently than any words

  and

  To Robyn Butler

  who has given her best

  GLOSSARY

  Acence: a Stonedownor, sister of Atiaran

  ahamkara: Hoerkin, “the Door”

  Ahanna: painter, daughter of Hanna

  aliantha: treasure-berries

  amanibhavam: horse-healing grass, poisonous to men

  Amatin: a Lord, daughter of Matin

  Amok: mysterious guide and servant to ancient Lore

  Amorine: First Haft, later Hiltmark

  anundivian yajña: “lost” Ramen craft of bone-sculpting

  Asuraka: Staff-Elder of the Loresraat

  aussat Befylam: child-form of the jheherrin

  Banas Nimoram: the Celebration of Spring

  Bann: a Bloodguard, assigned to Lord Trevor

  Bannor: a Bloodguard, assigned to Thomas Covenant

  Baradakas: a Hirebrand of Soaring Woodhelven

  Berek Halfhand: Heartthew, founder of the line of Lords, first of the Old Lords

  Bhrathair: a people met by the wandering Giants

  Birinair: a Hirebrand; later a Hearthrall of Lord’s Keep

  Bloodguard: the defenders of the Lords

  bone-sculpting: ancient Ramen craft, marrowmeld

  Borillar: a Hirebrand and Hearthrall of Lord’s Keep

  Brabha: a Ranyhyn, Korik’s mount

  caamora: Giantish ordeal of grief by fire

  Caer-Caveral: apprentice Forestal of Morinmoss Forest

  Caerroil Wildwood: Forestal of Garroting Deep

  Callindrill Faer-mate: a Lord

  Cavewights: evil creatures existing under Mount Thunder

  Celebration of Spring: the Dance of the Wraiths of Andelain on the dark of the moon in the middle night of spring

  Cerrin: a Bloodguard, assigned to Lord Shetra

  Circle of elders: Stonedown leaders

  clingor: adhesive leather

  Close, the: council chamber of Lord’s Keep

  Colossus, the: ancient stone figure guarding the Upper Land

  Cord: second Ramen rank

  Cording: ceremony of becoming a Cord

  Corimini: Eldest of the Loresraat

  Corruption: Bloodguard name for Lord Foul

  Cravenhaw: a region of the Land

  Creator, the: legendary Timelord and Landsire, enemy of Lord Foul

  Crowl: a Bloodguard

  Damelon Giantfriend: Old High Lord, son of Berek Halfhand

  Dance of the Wraiths: Celebration of Spring

  Demondim: spawners of ur-viles and Waynhim

  Desolation, the: era of ruin in the Land, after the Ritual of Desecration

  Despiser, the: Lord Foul

  Despite: Power of Evil

  dharmakshetra: “to brave the enemy,” Waynhim name

  diamondraught: Giantish liquor

  Doar: a Bloodguard

  Drinishok: Sword-Elder of the Loresraat

  Drinny: a Ranyhyn, Lord Mhoram’s mount, foal of Hynaril

  Drool Rockworm: a Cavewight, later leader of the Cavewights, finder of the Staff of Law

  dukkha: “victim,” Waynhim name

  Dura Fairflank: a mustang, Thomas Covenant’s mount

  Earthfriend: title first given to Berek Halfhand

  Earthpower, the: the source of all power in the Land.

  Elena: High Lord during first attack by Lord Foul; daughter of Lena

  Elohim: people met by the wandering Giants

  Eoman: twenty warriors plus a Warhaft

  Eoward: twenty Eoman plus a Haft

  fael Befylam: serpent-form of jheherrin

  Faer: mate of Lord Callindrill

  Fangthane the Render: Ramen name for Lord Foul

  FireLions: fire-flow of Mount Thunder

  fire-stones: graveling

  First Haft: third-in-command of the Warward

  First Mark: the Bloodguard commander

  First Ward of Kevin’s Lore: primary knowledge left by Lord Kevin

  Fleshharrower: a Giant-Raver, Jehannum, moksha

  Forbidding: a repelling force, a wall of power

  Forestal: a protector of the Forests of the Land

  Foul’s Creche: the Despiser’s home

  Furl Falls: waterfall at Revelstone

  Furl’s Fire: warning fire at Revelstone

  Gallows Howe: place of execution in Garroting Deep

  Garth: Warmark of the Warward of Lord’s Keep

  Gay: a Winhome of the Ramen

  Giantclave: Giantish conference

  Giants: the Unhomed, ancient friends of the Lords

  Gilden: a maple-like tree with golden leaves

  Gildenlode: a power-wood formed from Gilden trees

  Glimmermere: a lake on the upland above Revelstone

  Gorak Krembal: Hotash Slay

  Grace: a Cord of the Ramen

  graveling: fire-stones, made to glow by stonelore

  Gravin Threndor: Mount Thunder

  Gray Slayer: plains name for Lord Foul

  Grieve, The: Coe
rcri, Giant city

  griffin: lion-like beast with wings

  Haft: commander of an Eoward

  Haruchai, the: original race of the Bloodguard

  Healer: a physician

  Hearthrall of Lord’s Keep: a steward responsible for light, warmth, and hospitality

  Heart of Thunder: cave of power in Mount Thunder

  Heartthew: Berek Halfhand

  heartwood chamber: Woodhelven meeting place

  Heer: leader of a Woodhelven

  Herem: a Raver, Kinslaughterer, turiya

  High Lord: leader of the Council of Lords

  High Lord’s Furl: banner of the High Lord

  High Wood: lomillialor, offspring of the One Tree

  Hile Troy: Warmark of High Lord Elena’s Warward

  Hiltmark: second-in-command of the Warward

  Hirebrand: a master of woodlore

  Hoerkin: a Warhaft

  Home: original homeland of the Giants

  Howor: a Bloodguard, assigned to Lord Loerya

  Hurn: a Cord of the Ramen

  hurtloam: a healing mud

  Huryn, a Ranyhyn, Terrel’s mount

  Hynaril: a Ranyhyn, mount of Tamarantha and Mhoram

  Hyrim: a Lord, son of Hoole

  Illearth Stone: stone found under Mount Thunder, source of evil power

  Imoiran Tomal-mate: a Stonedownor

  Irin: a warrior of the Third Eoman of the Warward

  Jain: a Manethrall of the Ramen

  Jehannum: a Raver, Fleshharrower, moksha

  jheherrin: soft ones, living by-products of Foul’s misshaping

  Kam: a Manethrall of the Ramen

  Kelenbhrabanal: Father of Horses in Ranyhyn legends

  Kevin Landwaster: son of Loric Vilesilencer, last High Lord of the Old Lords

  Kevin’s Lore: knowledge of power left by Kevin in the Seven Wards

  Kinslaughterer: A Giant-raver, Herem, turiya

  Kiril Threndor: chamber of power deep under Mount Thunder, Heart of Thunder

  Koral: a Bloodguard, assigned to Lord Amatin

  Korik: a Bloodguard, a commander of the original Haruchai army